Ahaaaa - me hearties!!!

Arrrrrrrrr - Cap'n Sue here, reporting in!

How is it, than when I'm off work, I still don't manage to write on here every day? Shocking!

Soooooo - let's think, I last tagged in on Friday morning after my weigh in, so what have I been up to since then?

I took my bike out as planned on Friday. As always, a simple plan actually turned out to involve much faffing around, so I was far later leaving the house than I had planned. First my baggy bike shorts turned out to be far baggier than I remember - I guess I haven't worn them in a while and I've lost a few more inches since then! The liner shorts still fit, but the outers are like grand-daddy shorts now that, I can practically pull up to my boobs! Guess, I need to get some new ones.

It was also painfully obvious that my poor bike hasn't been out the garage in far too long, as it had rather a lot of cobwebs on the handlebars, and only 10 psi in the tyres - oh dear. At least I put it away clean though after the last ride. After a quick bit of sorting out, I jumped on and did the easy couple of miles to dad's. Actually, I was pretty pleased as the first mile or so is uphill, including quite a steep section, and actually flowed past quite nicely - my fitness obviously hasn't dropped too much.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day out - perfect biking weather - blue skies, a breeze, some warm sun. I got to test out my new merino t-shirt from Howies, which I bought in sales before I went away - super-comfy!

Had a nice lunch over with Dad, and he showed me some of his new paintings he's been working on (he's an artist and rather good one if I say so myself), and then he showed off his new electric bike. He was an happy amateur cyclist in his youth, and now he's retired and has more time, he turned to an electric bike to get out and about with his camera. It's a great compromise for him, as his health and fitness is definitely not what it used to be. I had a little ride round on it - I find it quite scary, having all that extra power, so I think I'll stick to my own little legs to get me around, but I can see how one would be great if you lived in a hilly city like Bath and needed an easy way to get round without getting in a muck sweat all the time!

I was going to head on out after lunch for a proper (easy) ride around, since it was such a lovely day, so Dad suggested he come out with me for the first couple of miles. It was really lovely riding along through the lanes with my Dad, even if I was having to spin my little legs off to keep up with him! After a while he headed back, and I continued along, meandering and exploring through the lanes (at a slightly gentler pace) and all the while wondering why I don't do this more often!

Then came the sound that all cyclists dread. The pssst pssst pssst sound of air escaping rapidly from something it shouldn't. Sure enough, my rear tyre was rapidly deflating, and when I got off to look, there was a large spear of gravel sticking out of the tyre. It might sound stupid, but I've sort of been waiting for this day nervously, as all novice bikers do - the first time you get a puncture and there's no one else around to sort you out. Thanks to Tim, I knew what to do as he'd shown me sometime last year, and I always carry a spare tube and patches with me, so it was with a glow of competent smugness that I hopped back on 20 mins later and pedalled off. Not the fastest change in the world, but it all worked first time, so that's that challenge out the way, and now I know I can deal with it.

The rest of the ride passed without adventure, aside from gathering clouds overhead, so I upped the pace on the way back and tried to beat the rain home (I did). An easy 15.5 miles.

Went to the pub in the evening for a few drinks for a friend's birthday, and cleverly forgot to put my cash and cards back in my purse after the ride, so got to the bar to find I was penniless! D'oh! One of my friends very kindly bought me a drink, but I did feel like a bit of a muppet!

Ah well - it must be the first Friday in a very long time where I've actually banked points rather than going over - I wish that happened more often!

Yesterday, was a bit of a lazy day, getting costumes finished off for the Pirate Party. I already had all the accessories from previous years, so the only thing I needed to do was construct a new stripy t-shirt as my existing one is obviously rather on the loose side these days! Rather than buy one, it's far more fun to buy a plain one and paint wonky red lines all over it, so that's exactly what I did. Black jeans, long boots (although I couldn't find my proper pirate-y ones - I seem to have thrown them out somewhere along the line ... booooo), stripy t-shirt, black waistcoat, big leather belt with sword tucked in, pirate hat, eye-patch, and big black kohl eye-liner, and I was ready to go.

Much fun was had, many cars honked at us, we nearly caused a car-crash because people were so busy staring, much "shanty" singing, and arrrrrrrrrrr-ing, good Thai food, a lot of drinks, 3 different pubs, back to Rob's house, more drinking, an ill-thought out game of Highest Card Drinks, live-action Buck-a-roo with Jon when he passed out (how much crap can we stealthily pile on him until he wakes up), more silliness, get the drunk people home as they start to fade, burn mouth on late night potato wedges (only 4 of them though), fall into bed at 4.

Wake up this morning with a horrible head.

Good things from yesterday - I tried on a pair of jeans that I bought in January, which have been too tight since I put that 7lbs back on, and they fit again. Yay!!

Today's been quiet due to a lot of sore heads all round, we've just popped up to the pub for a quiet lunch - I kept it healthy with broccoli soup and some bread, which means I can stay on track for today. It's not shaping up to be a terrible weekend so far, diet-wise. Yesterday was over on points, although not terrible, but purely because we ate out and there was drinking.

I've been really craving sweet stuff recently, but I've held off having it, wanting to keep that sort of stuff for a treat. Yesterday, I finally let myself have some and bought a small pack of fudge. Oh my god it was good! I'm really happy that I also only had half yesterday, and the other half today, and I was totally honest with how many points it was. I love this new honest me! lol

Tomorrow I'm heading off biking with a friend from Malvern, Lyndsay. She's off work too at the moment, as she's just finished her PhD, and we were chatting last night about the new trail at Cannock Chase. I mentioned that I wanted to try it at some point, as I haven't had a chance to get up there yet, and she eagerly suggested a trip up there. So tomorrow morning we're going on a mini adventure. I haven't done any proper mountain-biking in aaaaages so I'm really excited to be going again. The ride out on Friday put me in the mood for more biking, but I have to admit that I still get nervous about trying out new trails on my own, so it's always great to find new people to explore with.